The Evoluent Essentials Full Featured Compact Keyboard (EKB) is a slim keyboard designed to save your wrists with its flat design.

The keyboard might be the number one cause of repetitive stress injury today, leaving carpal tunnel syndrome and joint fatigue in its wake. For those who want something a little less tiresome at their desk, the Evoluent Essentials Full Featured Compact Keyboard (EKB) ($49.95 direct) is designed with your wrists in mind. A thin and flat design aims to minimize wrist angling while still giving you all the keyboard you need.

Design
The Evoluent Essentials Full Featured Compact Keyboard (EKB) offers a full-sized keyboard, but very little else. The Evoluent EKB is a study in reduction, as every unnecessary aspect of the keyboard has been ruthlessly cut away. The keyboard itself is thin with a 0.4 inch profile, and the surrounding plastic is just as minimal. There is no keypad, the idea being that this allows the mouse to be kept immediately next to the keyboard to minimize hand travel and the potential for RSI that comes with it.

The EKB is different even from most of the slim keyboards we've seen, because it isby designflat. The idea is that, instead of putting the keyboard at an angle, as seen on the HP Wireless Mini Keyboard (XB387AA) ($59.99 list, 3.5 stars), the better position for typing is flat. Without the need to angle your hands upward, there's less stress put on the wrists and a reduced risk of carpal tunnel or repetitive stress injury. The Verbatim Mini Wireless SlimBoard Keyboard & Mouse ($30 street, 3 stars) had a similarly flat profile, but didn't make any claims about the ergonomic benefits.

The slim build and light weightabout 15.7 ouncesalso makes it an ideal traveling keyboard. The keyboard will easily slip into a laptop bag, or stay stationary on your desk for months or years. With such a skinny profile, it's no surprise that the keyboard has pretty shallow key movement, but the keys still manage to be springy and responsive. This is thanks to mechanical scissor switches being used for each key instead of the cheaper, shoddier dome membrane switches used on many inexpensive keyboards. The result is a keyboard that, while shallow, is still satisfying to type on.

Features
The keyboard connects via USB 2.0, and is plug and play, with no additional drivers to download. Above the function keys are twelve dedicated hotkeys, offering one-key options for several functions: Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Web, Email, Computer, Mute, Volume Down, Volume Up, Sleep, and Turn Off. The Evoluent keyboard is equipped with LED indicators to tell you when the keyboard is plugged in, and when the Caps Lock is turned on.

One thing to watch out for, however, the last two buttons are "Sleep" and "Turn Off." Unfortunately, these keys are placed just above the F10 and F11 buttons, and a single mis-stroke can leave you staring at a black screen.

Overall, the Evoluent Essentials Full Featured Compact Keyboard (EKB) offers everything you want in a keyboard, but serves it up without the fat. For a fuller keyboard experience, you might consider a mechanical keyboard, such as the Das Keyboard Model S Professional for Mac ($133 list, 4 stars), but this flat-as-a-pancake keyboard gets the job done, and may help save your wrists in the process.

PCMag may earn affiliate commissions from the shopping links included on this page. These commissions do not affect how we test, rate or review products. To find out more, read our complete terms of use.